End Game
by Hargasm23
Summary: "My old partner.. he'd know what to do." Set Mid Season 15. EO.
1. Chapter 1

So this idea has been circling for years but I never had a place to use it within the series until now.

Summary: _"My old partner.. he'd know what to do."_

Set: Mid Season 15

:::

She began to stir.

And it was immediate, something was off, something was wrong.

Her arms were aching and she must have slept on them awkwardly because there were pins and needles and a numbness she couldn't dispel.

She opened her eyes, expecting to see shadows, objects, outlines but all she saw was a jet-black expanse. Her eyelids were heavy, lethargic and her eyelashes scraped against soft material as she blinked against nothingness.

She tried to move, to turn, but she was stuck, cemented. Bound.

There was a low mechanical hum filtering through her ears and it felt like she was floating, moving - hovering almost.

She tried to breathe through her mouth but her lips were pressed shut, almost as if someone were pressing their palm flat against her mouth. She continued to draw deep, languid breaths through her nose as she tried to ascertain what was happening.

She was dreaming.

She knew this feeling. She had been here before. That disconnect between consciousness and dream state. That rare and peculiar awareness when you're dreaming within a dream. It had been a while.

Not since Lewis.

She couldn't move her hands, her mouth and she had been stripped of sight like one of those dreams where you scream to the heavens only to be faced with muted silence. She wondered how long it would take her to wake up, stir, to breathe life into her limbs once more.

She moved her legs in an effort to shake herself out of it as it was the only thing she seemed to have the ability to move. The flat palms of her feet ran across the smooth short fibers beneath her. Carpet maybe? Only finer.

Her legs were bare and the cool night air tickled her skin sending a cold shiver thorough her body. Perhaps she would rouse soon and realize she'd kicked the sheet off during the night, and awkwardly slept with both arms beneath her.

Behind her.

The mechanical hum almost appeared to be getting louder, more prominent and the moveable base beneath her suddenly came to a grinding, solidifying halt. Her whole body rolled forcibly to her left until she slammed into a hard, unforgiving surface. Her forehead connected with something jagged and it snapped her into the present.

She's no longer in a dream state. She's conscious and her heart thuds violently in her chest when she feels her arms - bound behind her back, metal bracelets piercing into the raw skin around her wrists. She smells fumes, she tastes blood, she can barely breathe through her nose, there is tape over her mouth, material over her eyes, carpet beneath her body. She's cold, freezing and aside from her underwear, she's completely naked. Her head is splitting where her forehead connected and tears start to prick at the realization that she cannot move a fucking muscle.

Her sight has been stripped but she feels an enclosure above her, a roof, only lower, trapping her, confining her. Making the breaths she's urging through her nose more urgent, more critical.

The carpet beneath her starts up again and she feels her whole body roll because the mechanical hum is back and she's moving again. She falls back a little, her backside digging into her bound wrists, causing a sharp flood of pain to shoot through her. She moans through the throbbing but it's muffled by tape, the sticky pressure drowning out the noise so desperate to escape. She's been in these cuffs for a while she realizes, and they are tight – too tight.

She hears it then. Small sounds that she hadn't registered before and suddenly it hits her full force. An engine, the clicking of an indicator, the dull hint of traffic outside.

She's in the trunk of a fucking car.

_No, no, no, no, no._

The tears start to stream on their own accord because this isn't how it's supposed to go.

Harris. Lewis. Therapy. Cassidy. _Life after death. _

She was doing so well.

It's oxygen she's lacking considerably now and it's rapid-fire breaths that she's drawing through her nostrils. She is crying, sobbing, the moisture of her tears seeping into the material covering her eyes, and the bile in the back of her throat has nowhere to go but back down.

"Mmmhmmmmhmhm," she screams against the constraints that have her surrendered completely, but the noise barely travels further than her ears. She needs air, her body is trembling. Her chest rising and falling by the second. She is going to pass out, she thinks, because she is practically hyperventilating. Her leg moves up in desperation until it comes in contact with the roof of the trunk above her and she kicks with all her might, over and over, foolishly thinking she might actually have the strength to concur metal.

Her lungs are screaming for oxygen, and she is moaning, sobbing, shrieking beneath the tape, knowing full well that she is only making things worse on herself. She rolls over then, scooting as close to the edge of the trunk door as possible and her feet feel through the darkness, moving from carpet, up the ridge until they hit plastic.

She feels it then, the backing of the taillight, and it's with one heavy, gut wrenching grunt that she kicks it out of it's socket. Plastic pieces, bulb glass - shattering, cutting into her bare feet but it's air she thinks, and a portal to the outside world.

It's going to be ok now. She can do this, but her heart is still racing, the sound reverberating in her eardrums and her hands bound behind her are now completely devoid of feeling.

All she can taste is metallic acid but there is a silent relief because her lungs are no longer screaming for air. She feels much calmer, lightheaded almost and her body tingles with an overwhelming feeling of weightless.

And then just black.

::::

A shooting pain rockets through her back and her eyes snap open.

The air she so desperately craved is now rapidly drawing through her nostrils. She feels a sticky, stinging ache between her shoulder blades where she thinks broken plastic or glass must have wedged into her skin. Her feet are stinging now, the cool air irritating the open cuts from where her feet made contact with the taillight.

She isn't as frantic as before. Passing out must have been the slap across the face she needed to counter her hyperventilation.

She needs to focus, get a grip, and not allow that panic-stricken state to return. The car slows to a stop once more and she rolls faster this time, and her eyes slam shut because she's knows it's going to hurt. The slice of pain rips through her as the shard in her back hits carpet and she rolls further until something unexpected breaks her fall.

Her body slams into another body.

She screams beneath the tape when she feels warm, clammy skin beneath her body. Her thigh up against someone else's, her face slamming into what she can only imagine is their upper arm.

She tries desperately to scuttle backward, using her feet against the carpet to move her off but her bound hands coupled with the pull of gravity restricts her.

A dead body. She thinks.

A fucking, dead body right up against her. And she's next.

When the car begins to move again she is given the leverage to move backwards and she scoots as far away from the body as possible. When she feels her bound hands press up against the trunk door she is shaking from the panic, the cold, the fact that it's noticeably dropped 10 degrees since she kicked out the tail light and she is sobbing because the only thing worse than waking up in here alone.

Is not waking up alone.

She is breathing rapidly through the sobs, and she thinks about her squad, her captain, Brian – the fact that 7 months had passed and they'd only just stopped treating her like a victim.

_And now this.._

She hears movement beside her and it forces her into a state of absolute paralysis. She is completely still. She refuses to even draw a breath until she figures out what she's hearing.

Then it's a soft moan beside her that causes her eyes to widen under the blindfold. The body beside her is alive. Of course it is. It was warm, clammy - not cold and stiff. She thinks it's another victim. A second body to torture and dismember. Maybe he'll make her watch as he does her first.

_Lewis._

She swallows, the tears streaming openly now because maybe she needs to just accept that she is destined to be a victim. How many times doesn't she have to go to hell and back before she realizes she's not invincible? She thinks about her mother, her father, her roots, her history all so violently and horrifically interweaving into her present.

_When will it end?_

She can't do this again, not when she knows what's ahead.

She hears shifting, the body is moving now twisting. She feels the ripples beneath the carpet and the gruff, muffled noises coming from underneath what she can only assume is duct tape. There is something about the tone that unsettles her, it had just been a grunt, a low sound of exertion but it had been deep, horse, masculine.

It doesn't fit. The profile. The situation. It doesn't make sense, but then she remembers the feel of the body as she slammed into it. Large, long limbed, muscular, firm.

She hears more twisting, more grunting and she holds her breath and clamps her eyes tightly shut because maybe this is one of the abductors. Maybe it's a trick. Either way she doesn't want to make her presence known until she ascertains exactly what she's dealing with.

She hears a low noise of exertion followed by a heavy thud and her throat catches in shock and she prays that he will just stop and revert to being unconscious.

Then she hears it, the slow tearing of tape against skin as he removes the duct tape. Her heartbeat is so loud in her ears she is concerned he is going to hear it. She listens to him draw in a long, overdue breath and all she can think is.

_How? _

How could he take off the tape if his arms were bound behind him like hers were? But the question rapidly slips from her mind when she feels it. Movement in her direction, his presence getting closer. Hands moving across the carpet, searching, feeling – until all the air in her lungs expel as a cold, clammy, masculine hand scrapes the side of her bare torso before quickly retreating.

She hears the rapid intake of breath from her right and she knows then, this guy wasn't anticipating her presence either. He is just as blindsided as she is. But she's still not convinced so she remains silent, dormant, unmoving.

After a few excruciating beats his hand returns, this time moving far more hesitantly. His fingers tentatively graze the ridge of her shoulder before retreating again. Then she clamps her lips together when she feels them on her neck, goosebumps exploding across her body. And all she keeps thinking is – p_lay dead, play dead, play dead._

His hand gains a little more confidence, moving up her neck, across her jaw line until he locates the tape. He loiters for a few seconds before he moves his hand further up, smoothing across the material that's blocking her sight.

He's touching her as if he can't see in front of him either and she holds her breath, trying to remain completely and utterly still but she's trembling from the cold. From his touch, and she knows it won't be long until he discovers she's completely conscious.

It's moments then before his hand falls back downward and his fingers locate the in the crook of her neck, and when they press firmly inward, she realizes what he's doing.

He's checking for her pulse.

The short, rapid breaths above her are almost warming her skin he's that close and the tears continue to trickle beneath the blindfold because she has no idea what to expect. No idea where to go from here.

The man above her however, knows that she is alive, and breathing but it isn't until his hand smoothes further down her neck, and trails across the thin gold chain that splays across her chest that she feels it.

A deep, familiar, unrealistic throb in her heart, her lower belly. His fingers, his breath, his body, his groan. All tangible, all possible, all suddenly frighteningly familiar.

_Stop,_ she tells herself. Just stop. Because no. It's something her therapist had pressed her on, when those thoughts start to arise. She needs to just stop, and accept the fact that even in times of danger, she has to avoid clinging to safety, familiarity, stability… because it's not realistic.

_It's not healthy._

But when his course fingers slide down the chain and wrap around the rectangular structure that symbolizes everything she used to stand for, she hears it.

His breath catch, his fingers still and the pendant falling achingly back onto her clammy skin.

And it's a solid wave of disbelief that washes over her when she hears the man above her whisper her name through the darkness.

"_Liv?"_

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the response to this one guys, appreciate all your comments! I will try to update this as much as possible but am currently enduring some intense Jamaican heat which turns out isn't the most conducive environment to write in.

There was also a town wide blackout that was quite an unwelcome set back, as was the neighbour's dog who ate my fan fic.. Kidding, but seriously. I'm pretty much in Timbuktu right now so it's amazing this even made it into the real world!

Excuse typos. My beta is a million miles away. As is my sanity. Hope you're all well!

:::::

_Liv._

She's trembling. The air in her lungs feels violently trapped, stifled. She needs to breathe. Move. But she's bordering on paralytic. She didn't just hear that. Her name, whispered, in a timbre she'd spent her prime beside, and the remainder forgetting.

This is a hallucination, that's all there is too it. A dream of the many she's had since he walked. She's been in and out of it all night. That's all this is. Car fumes, pain response, blood loss. She's just clinging to safety, familiarity, stability… Stabler. _Stop._

She still isn't moving. She's hoping the figurative presence beside her will miraculously disappear into thin air. If she stays completely and utterly still, she thinks it might actually be possible. But she hears breathing, feels the warm bursts against her neck and there is nothing figurative about it.

She squints her eyes, because she can sense movement and her body jolts the moment his fingertips bump softly against her jawbone. She turns her head, away from his hand, his breaths, his _fucking_ presence because she doesn't want to believe it. She doesn't want to succumb to it - to him. She doesn't want the relief to spill through her veins and into her chest only to wake up moments later, cold. Alone.

A few beats pass before she feels his hands again, this time they're moving into her matted hair and goosebumps ignite across her flesh like wildfire, the entire expanse of skin tingling from his touch._ God, what is he doing? _

Her eyes open underneath the material and she realizes his fingers have located the knot in her blindfold. He loosens it slowly, pulling the ends apart before he slips it completely off her eyes. She expects to be faced with light, objects, awareness, but it's dark - pitch black almost, with the exception of a small burst of light peaking through at her feet.

She turns back then, because she wants to see, even if this is just a dream, she wants proof that it's in some capacity him. She expects to see an outline, a silhouette, but there is nothing but blackness, and the moisture in her eyes bud once more at the confusion.

His hands are back, this time she feels them on her cheekbone, and her heart rate pummels as she tries to draw even breaths through her nostrils. She feels his finger tips, curling under the corner of the duct tape, grasping the edges and dragging the tape from one side of her mouth to the other in one slow swoop.

When it comes off completely, the sound that escapes her mouth is a combination of shock from the sting, and relief from an unrestricted breath. She draws in a heavy, languid inhalation that expands her lungs completely, the lightheaded feeling she's been struggling with evaporating the moment the much oxygen reaches her brain.

She licks her dry lips, swallows and blinks through the darkness, suddenly aware that she now has the ability to formulate words. But she doesn't speak, because she isn't ready to confirm whether this is reality or hallucination.

But then.

"Liv?" he whispers once more, and this time the word actually expels against her lips. She presses her eyes together because it's him, it's him, it's _fucking_ him, and tears spill openly down her cheeks in response.

She'd registered the tremble in his voice, her name was still a question. He is just as unsure as she'd been and is desperate for confirmation. He is so close and she has nowhere to go. He's removed all the means that had silenced her but it's now his proximity that's stifling her ability to speak.

His hands are back again, a palm smoothing across her cheek, holding her face and she can feel his fingers trembling slightly. She still has her eyes clamped shut and when he swipes his thumb across her cheek, it trails across layers of moisture.

Her gasp is open then, heavy and she is practically sobbing into the small space between them. Her wrists, her back, her feet all sting with an overwhelming ache but it's nothing compared to the pang that's hitting her in the depth of her chest.

"El," she whimpers, and she hadn't meant for it to sound so desperate, so desolate, so weak - but it's over two years of unresolved emotion coupled with the sheer disbelief of the situation at hand. She can't ascertain or comprehend a single thought right now except for the fact that her partner is in front of her.

_Her partner._

She expects him to speak, she hears the questions circling his mind loud and clear, the same ones she'd been struggling with the moment she regained consciousness.

_Where are they? What happened? What the hell was going on?_

She expects words from him, questions - but instead she just feels his hands, slipping from her cheek and finding her shoulder. His hands feeling - following the trail of her arm until he establishes they're bound behind her back. She feels him move in closer, his chin bumping her cheek and the whiff of his familiar, tangible scent makes her ache for their former life.

"Your back," he chokes, "turn onto your back." His words are scratchy and coarse and he doesn't wait for confirmation he is already tipping her, moving her onto her back. Her feet come up in response trying to stop him by grounding her body in place but it's too late. Her ass presses into her bound hands, her shoulder blades hit the carpeted floor and the shard lodges deep within her back.

The howl erupts immediately as the pain practically slices her in two and the piercing cry reverberates in the small, enclosed space. His hands come off her in shock and she squeezes her eyes shut, doubling over in pain. She rolls forward, attempting to assume the fetal position but her forehead hits his bare chest.

She moans against him in anguish. The shard of glass or plastic in her back needs to come out – and it needs to come out now. She is breathing heavily, sweat forming on her brow despite the chill in the air, and bile starts to rise at the back of her throat.

"Jesus Liv, talk to me," his shaky, unsure voice expels through the darkness and it's clear he's in a state of shock, confusion, alarm. The pain she's experiencing is paramount and is in no way tapering down. She doesn't have the luxury of time to explain this.

"El," she sobs, his name bouncing off his chest and back into her throat. Her arms, bound behind her back are stiffened beyond belief but all she can focus on is the need to remove the foreign object wedged deep in her body. "Please," she whispers. That's all she can manage before she clamps her teeth into her lower lip and moans through another wave of merciless pain.

She feels his hand back on her shoulder but it's not the right place and she's starting to feel dangerously faint.

"Back," she cries, "my back - get it out," she practically chokes on the demand.

Then it's as if he's in autopilot, grasping her upper arm and pulling her onto her stomach. She feels him struggle in the darkness, his hands bumping into her side awkwardly, trying to grasp her waist – pull her towards him, but his fingers keep slipping off.

"Roll over," he rasps, and she moans into the carpet because her body is splitting at this point and she doesn't understand why he isn't just getting it out. "My hands are tied, roll over, your back facing me." The demand is a rush, each word tripping over the last.

_What?_ But it doesn't make sense, he's been touching her. How can he be touching her with bound hands? But then she thinks about how restricted his touch has been, how his fingers had been so close together on her face, her shoulder. She thinks about that loud thud and how it was most likely him moving his body through his bound hands from behind.

Another wave of pain shoots up her spine and she knows it's up to her now. With all the strength she can muster she hauls her body over, rolling up onto her hip. The pain is slicing beyond belief in this newfound position but it's the only way she can align her back to his hands. Her teeth continue to bore into her lower lip as she fails to muffle the whimpers that are escaping, a thick residue rises up her throat and she thinks she might actually be sick now.

She feels his body closer than ever now, his knees slotting gently into the backs of hers. Her bound fingertips now flush up against the hard surface of his bare abdomen. Her eyes prick then, at the touch, at the reality, at the selfish realization that despite the impending danger Elliot could face, she doesn't have to endure it alone this time.

When his hands try to move up to her back he finds them obstructed by hers. She waits him out as their bound hands tango awkwardly until he finally manages to move them up and over hers. When they come in contact with her lower back, his fingers trail slowly up her spine, feeling – searching, and she shivers against his touch.

"Where," he whispers and she hadn't realized how close he was, his mouth practically buried in her hair, the warmth from his breath achingly welcome. She wants to feel it all over, she wants to wrap herself up in it, until it completely extinguishes the chill of the frozen night air.

"High - er," she breathes out, her teeth now chattering - the word seizing half way as the pain slices into her. That's all she can manage because she just needs relief now. Relief and warmth.

His fingers run upward, they're tentative – unsure, but all she is focusing on is the heat his limited touch now provides. She needs to get closer to him, once this shard is gone, she needs bury herself, envelope, cocoon herself into his warmth until this whole ordeal is over.

He's moving slow, most likely in an effort to avoid causing further pain, but she just needs relief. When he locates the shard she jolts at the movement, her heart-beat bounding in a sudden startling fret of anticipation. She hears the sharp intake of breath behind her as he fingers the piece, sizing up the extent of the damage. She can sense him analyzing the risk of pulling out a shard that could possibly cause her to bleed to death.

"Get it," she rasps breathless, practically through gritted teeth, "out." Because there is no time for him to reconsider this. Time is slowly dwindling and _fuck it_ - she'd rather bleed to death than endure one more second of this excruciating pain.

He doesn't hesitate then. She feels his fingers move into place and it's as if she can hear the silent beats of mental preparation -_ one, two, three_, before he pulls sharply. The howl comes out in a strangled cry followed by sobbing as she doubles over in mixture of pain and relief. She tries to grab onto something, anything, but her fingertips barely scrape the plains of his stomach before her eyes begin to glaze over.

_Holy mother of God._

She feels the warm liquid spill openly from the wound now, pooling at her waist and there is pressure against her back. The flat of his palm she thinks - firm, strong, commanding against the dampness. She tries to bite back the ache, the throb, the sting - but it's the white specs dancing in front of her eyelids that she can't dispel.

Her dry throat fills with a salty, metallic residue that lines the back of her throat. Blood. She feels the pressure lessen from behind and she has no choice but to sink further into the floor. The air leaves her lungs as she slowly succumbs to a welcome numbness that disperses itself gradually through her limbs.

_Push against me Liv!_

She hears the desperate words from behind her, but the voice sounds light years away. _It's ok El,_ she wants to tell him. She isn't hurting anymore, she isn't in pain, she doesn't even feel cold. She just needs to sleep. To rest. And they will figure this out later. They will.

But as she starts to drift into the makings of a heavy slumber, a swarm of uncertainty begins to flood through her as if _this_, lying bound, half-naked bleeding out next to her partner, had been the dream all along.

And she was about to wake up.

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

I love you all and your beautiful words. It's pretty much all I have to look forward to here! x

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Music.

There is music.

Soft, jovial beats that lace her ears like a blissful drug. She draws the beats through her nostrils, a weighty breath filling her lungs, the music filtering into her bloodstream.

She hears lyrics, but they're contorted, backwards, and she waits for them to re-jig themselves, like a puzzle that needs solving.

It's familiar. A Christmas Carol perhaps. A song from a movie she'd seen before. She knows it, and just like a game show question there's an innate need within her to decipher it before it's revealed.

She catches glimmers of familiarity before it fades out again. It's practically on the tip of her tongue. She's so close. The longer the beat continues to drum against her chest, the sooner it will hit.

"_Every morning, every evening, ain't we got fun-"_

Her eyes snap violently open as the all too familiar lyrics pound into her chest like a sledgehammer. Her arms are bound behind her, and she's being held down by a heavy force. She swallows the thick tar-like substance pooled at the back of her throat before she gasps for a breath.

Then she screams.

Mercilessly - unabashedly. She screams bloody-_fucking_-murder as she thrashes against her captor. There are hands, a body, holding her down, pressing her into the floor. _Lewis. _He is on her, his naked thighs between her legs. Fuck,_ no, no, no._

She jerks. She kicks, only to hit the thin air either side of his legs. She switches gears, plummeting her feet downward, her heels thumping forcibly into the sensitive muscles of his calves.

She hears a howling groan, feels his hips buck against hers as he tries to move but she isn't done. She shifts a leg stealthily between his, and slams the muscle of her upper thigh ruthlessly between his legs. He doubles over, the howling cry piercing her eardrum as his head hits the floor beside her body.

He falls into her like a dead weight, every crevice of his body holding her against the floor, the metal penetrating deeper into her already raw wrists. The open, aching wound between her shoulder blade now throbbing from impact.

_Fuck he's heavy. So heavy. _She wants to scream, cry. _Who knew Lewis could be this heavy? _She wants to tell him to get the hell off her. She just needs to find her voice. But she swallows the pain and instead listens to the weak, breathless, aching, groan that is now jagged against her shoulder. She closes her eyes in disgust, trying to will the bile, the blood - whatever the fuck she is choking on, back down.

"_Not much money, oh but honey, ain't we got fun?"_

The lyrics slice her, and it's a tangible, terrifying reminder that will either destroy her tonight or cause her to violently snap.

"Get, the fuck - off me," she rasps through short and sharp breaths, because she's going to make damn sure it's the latter. The movement coming from her captor is slow at first, but she can feel it starting to rebuild. She knows time isn't on her side, and she sure as shit isn't going to wait him out.

She musters the strength within, braces herself for the pain and hauls her whole body in one quick movement. He slides far enough off her that she can now use her legs to shove him the remainder of the way. Her feet thrust into him until his body hits a hard surface, that's when she hears the groan, the inhale, the moan.

Then the voice.

"Jesus.. Christ -" the all too familiar man chokes through the darkness, and her eyes widen.

_Holy fuck._

No.

No. She didn't. It isn't.

"What the fu – ckk," Elliot chokes out and she hears the thick layer of bile that now coats his throat from the pulverizing she inflicted on his groin.

"Oh my God," she whispers, her body shaking with a feeling of utter disorientation. What the hell? Ten seconds ago Lewis was on top of her. Not Elliot. She was sure of it. His body, his strength holding her down. The smell, his sweat, his strength. The music. That song.

That she can no longer hear..

Suddenly she is questioning all of it. Any of it. What was real? She knows for a fact her knee made contact with Elliot's crotch. His piercing cry coupled with his labored breaths tell her that for sure.

Her eyes brim with tears at the extent of pain she would have caused him. "I'm so.. so sorry," she whispers into the darkness, her voice thick with regret. She doesn't know how much of it was real. But she knows what she felt - she isn't crazy. "You were.." she starts, feeling the sudden need to defend her actions, to question the undeniable strength she felt above her. "You were," she repeats, her shaky voice hindering mid-sentence because she can barely think it let alone say it out loud. "Holding me down," she finishes in a heavy breath, tears spilling down her cheeks at the mere thought.

"Jesus Liv I was applying-" he breathes out, cutting himself off, still trying to counter the pain she'd caused between his legs, "pressure," he finishes before she hears his uneasy breaths through the darkness. "Olivia, you passed out," he whispers.

She pieces the remainder together. Her back, the shard, the blood, the pressure. He needed her flat on her back, against upholstery, because they'd been stripped of clothes or any suitable material. There were no blankets back here and she was practically bleeding out. His bound hands couldn't have applied the pressure she needed in her position, and it was no wonder he couldn't move off her in a hurry with his hands tied.

"I'm," she starts before she closes her eyes, "El I'm so sorr.. fuck," she cries out, twisting against the cuffs, wanting now more than ever to burry her face within her hands and muffle the sobs that were escaping. But she can't. She has no option but to relinquish control of her emotions and let them spill openly out of her.

She hears him listening, considering, registering and then it's the tentative way he speaks that causes her sobs to cease in action.

"Christ, you thought I was.." his accusation trails off and she can hear the shock, the confusion, the blatant disbelief at her violent response to him.

_He thinks you thought it was him._

_Not you El, not you. _She wants to beg him to understand this mere fact but she can't. Not without subsequently altering his perception of her indefinitely. _Please just let this go Elliot._ _Please don't read into it. It's not what you think._

But as the silence draws on she can feel it. The plates shifting, the knowledge – the former detective within, the cases, the predators - the survivors. It hits her like a tone of bricks. He knows, he _fucking_ knows, and she'd just handed it to him in one painstaking, irreversible moment.

_Token victim response. _

"El I.." she begins, tears spilling silently down her cheeks now because she isn't strong enough for this – for Elliot. She can't do this, and despite the fact that she had been singing praises to a God she doesn't believe in that he was here tonight, all of a sudden she wished beyond belief he wasn't.

She wants him home, with his wife and his family – with his safety, his stability. Not here in the back of a car where his awareness of her is altering by the second.

He was never supposed to know. That was the one pitiful constellation she took away from Lewis. Her entire squad, Cassidy, her captain – they will _always_ know. But Elliot, she kept that sacred. She took solace in the fact that she owned that, drew comfort in the knowledge that he'd always regard her as a strong, capable, resilient, unbroken cop.

_Until now._

"I didn't.." she gasps, trying her best to defend, to explain her actions but then it hit her. She doesn't have to answer to him, she owes him nothing. He walked, she prevailed. He can speculate all he damn well wants. He can read into her reaction and assume it was some type of "trigger", but he will never know for sure if she doesn't let him.

She latches onto that.

"El I'm sorry," she breathes out, her words controlled, and far more even now. "I don't know what happened." She let her lie dispel into the darkness, her heartbeat seeping into a soft lull against her ribcage, surprizing even herself at how well she managed deliver the calm response. She is ready now she thinks, ready to counter whatever he throws at her.

She feels the tension, the analysis – the concern building from her right and she fights it.

"Liv.." he whispers, and the way his voice broke part way through her name slices into the depth of her heart.

_Stop, just stop._ _Fight the tears Olivia_. _Fight the pain._ _He will hear it in your voice._

But that tone. She closes her eyes to the darkness, and it might as well be six years ago. His hands pressed firmly against her desk, his mouth so close to her ear it reaches her heart.

_What happened in the basement?_

No. _Just no._ He has no right. Who does he think he is after all these years? He cannot read her anymore. Especially not here in the dark. The traces of tears, the permanent anguish imbedded in her frown lines are all things he can't see. All he has to cling to is unverified speculation. She's not doing this. _They're_ not doing this. Not in the trunk of some sick sickos car. Not after he walked.

She shifts gears.

"What do you remember El?" her voice is steady, even and she closes her eyes to the darkness and pretends they're working a case. She imagines him sitting across the desk from her, not bound before her in a trunk. "Tonight El," she rewords the question, "before you woke up here ..what do you remember?" The calm way in which she's speaking to him might as well be to a victim in the squad room. She takes pride in how quickly she managed to fight it, block out – rebuild herself, particularly here and now - with all her basic human rights stripped completely away.

"Going to sleep," he whispers quietly, as if he'd been thinking about it all night, questioning the implausibility of it all. "You?"

She concentrates on the even breaths Elliot no longer appears to be catching,

"Same," she blows out. The disbelief of it all so paramount. Cassidy had been working an all-nighter, he wasn't due back until the morning. The last thing she remembered was pulling down the comforter and drifting off into a much needed slumber.

_Now this._

"Liv," he repeats her name quietly in the darkness, and it's the same tone.

_Damn it. Damn him. _She closes her eyes, it was her own doing - she'd let the silence stew for too long, giving him enough time to revert back to his earlier line of questioning. _Don't_. She wants to tell him. _Just don't. _Unless he has a death wish, he needs to stop now_._

"What is this?" he continues quietly, his voice a quiet tremble. "Tell me you know what's happening."

She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. He's letting her off the hook she thinks. She considers his question, but she's just as unsure as he is.

"A current case?" he questions, "this fit a profile in the system?"

_No._ That's the problem. There is no profile. No reasoning. No motive for this.

"I don't know," she sighs because all she sees is Lewis. It's all she's seen since she woke up here. It's all she ever sees.

And hears.

_Ain't we got fun._

She's well aware that her judgment is clouded at this point. She doesn't need Haung, her therapist or her captain to tell her this. It's something she came to terms with the moment her knee came in contact with Elliot's groin. She can't trust herself. She _won't_ trust herself, and as a result she isn't even going to attempt rationalizing what's happening right now.

She knows he can feel it, her deflation, her distance, her silence - all rendering the emotional pull beside her, his dire need for her to theorize this with him, into a grey area of uncertainty. He's waiting for her to rise to the plate, like they've done time, and time again and match him blow for blow.

She has her pulse on the hub of current candidates and he has a hefty catalogue of historical torment to draw upon. He wants to dive head first into their table tennis tango, bouncing ideas off each other like old times. He is starving for her speculations, her "likes", her hope - their unity, and damnit she wants to give it to him, she does. But there is nothing in her tank.

Nothing but Lewis.

"A past case Liv?" Elliot tries, continuing without her, thinking out loud - hoping it will ignite some sort of response within her. "We piss someone off, a perp recently paroled, a warped revenge?"

He is asking her like she is withholding the answer, but all she can concentrate on is the churn in the depth of her stomach.

_Lewis. _

_Stop Olivia. You're reaching. _Every bump in the night, every footstep in an empty parking lot. She has to stop answering them all with Lewis. He's locked up. It doesn't fit. He is a predator of women. Weak women. Not strong, masculine men.

_That old partner of yours.. he sounds very macho doesn't he._

Her stomach drops out from under her. _Don't do this. Please. _She has to stop with this. She will die a slow and painful death if she continues down this path.

"Tell me Liv.." she hears him whisper, "tell me what you're thinking."

_Damn it_, how he can still read her after all these years without so much as eye contact she will never know, but she has no answers for him. None she is willing to give him.

"Liv," he repeats and her mouth opens, ready to dispel his question when she feels it before it happens. The honk of a horn, the screeching of tires on asphalt, the way her body shoots forward, slamming forcibly into his. Their foreheads knock, his bound hands slam square into her gut, a painful moan wrenching from her throat. She has no choice but to move with him as the car skids, turns, until it careens into a squealing, forcible halt.

_Fucking, fuck. _

There are blinding moments, seconds of erratic, entwined breathing, mutual, unrestrained panic all enveloped by dead silence. Then she feels the car slowly start back up again, and they're moving, continuing on as if none of it had happened.

Only now, she feels the warm breath against the nape of her neck, the heat of skin-on-skin, a soreness in her abdomen and the ongoing throb in her back. She can't move. Her hands are restricting any means to recover the space she removed from them.

So she doesn't. She just breathes. Her mouth settled against his collarbone, her breasts against his chest, his fist against her stomach and their legs practically intertwined.

She blocks out the pain. The panic. The situation. It all. She just concentrates on the warmth, the life - the heartbeat now thumping wildly against hers. She revels in the way her teeth are no longer chattering and her gooseflesh has momentarily subsided. Her entire awareness settles on the mere fact that his proximity alone has always managed to ignite a heat beneath her flesh. Then it registers, the awareness of just how cold, how utterly frozen she's been since he left.

She's endured a lifetime of denial, abstinence and restraint in many facets of her life. She prides her self on her ethics, her morals. She draws lines in the sand and never crosses them. She doesn't show weakness, she never crumbles, she certainly never breaks.

But just this once she is letting herself have this. This moment of comfort, of peace, of protection, of warmth - of complete and utter, aching dependency, knowing full well it could be her last.

And it's in his cocoon of stability that she finally allows herself to defrost.

**TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

This chapter kicked my ass.

::::

Olivia's face. Her breasts. Her stomach. Her thighs. Her heartbeat. Her breath. All things he can feel. All things that should seem foreign to him, yet somehow seem innately familiar.

Her body had slammed into his by the sheer force of gravity, like the universe was playing a cruel joke on him.

_You can run from this Elliot, but you can't hide. _

He's been waiting for her to back away the moment they collided. Almost certain the woman, whose personal space has always been the size of a backyard pool, would recreate the distance she's always been intent on keeping between them.

But she doesn't.

Instead he focuses on how in the most extreme of circumstances, she manages to fill him with an inherent sense of reassurance. She is a flood of familiarity, of comfort. Her presence, her scent, the vanilla from her shampoo igniting a slideshow of late nights, stakeouts, arguments, reconciliations, laughter, tears, history, emotion, unity. And it's now, in the trunk of a strangers car that the memories he'd unknowingly suppressed slam so forcibly into his chest that he struggles to get air into his lungs.

God he misses this. Misses her. So _fucking_ much.

He drops his head until his nose meets with the crown of her head and he allows himself to drink her scent. He doesn't have any right, he's in no way entitled or even deserves this proximity to her, but whether it's God, the fates or a sheer coincidence that has brought her into his arms tonight - he takes it. Every. Last. Minute. He dismisses the guilt, justifies it wholeheartedly, the same way a recovering alcoholic bargains with himself for just a whiff of whiskey post relentless deprivation.

Not a taste, or a piece, or it's entirety. Just a whiff.

He doesn't know why the idea of her using the same shampoo all these years later is so reassuring, but it is. Perhaps it's change he's so deathly afraid of. He didn't want her to, in anyway. He wants to keep the memory of her in a neat little un-tampered, untapped, inaccessible box to draw upon only in times of immense hardship. The darkest part of the nights. The coldest days of winter. The deepest parts of his chest. Maybe then he can be assured that she'll always be there for him.

_He's a selfish son of a bitch. _

As she shifts only slightly against his form an unidentifiable pang rocks into his chest because as familiar as she is, she also seems implacably different now.

She softened against him so naturally, melded herself into his form without reserve. She isn't hard, jagged, no-nonsense like he remembers. She's soft, unguarded, unpredictable. She howled openly from the shard that pierced her flesh and slammed her knee so ruthlessly between his legs he'd tasted blood. And now, flush up against him she isn't even attempting to detach herself. Maybe it's strength she lacks, maybe it's the pain she's succumbing to. Whatever it is, it's unfamiliar, unknown, and completely and entirely out of his control.

He thinks about her blood on his hands, no longer metaphorical, now bitterly tangible. He rubs his fingers together slowly, her dried blood no doubt staining his skin, marking him. Blood from her back – the back he'd spent thirteen years protecting. _The irony_, he thinks.

As she exists against him, her limp body filling every crevice, he thinks about the depth of her wound. The possibility that vital organs had been pierced and life could still be draining out of her.

"Liv," he whispers, his words expelling into the tresses of vanilla that cascade down her neck. Having to disrupt her current subdued state isn't something he wants to do, but he needs to know she's ok. "Your back," he reminds her, because she has to keep pressure on it. _More irony,_ he thinks, pressing on a wound - inflicting more pain in an effort to heal.

She only offers silence in exchange for his concern but he can still feel the soft rise and fall of her chest so he doesn't press it. Instead he finds himself succumbing to the cold chill that has somehow managed to seep into the trunk. He feels it nipping his fingertips, teasing his toes, forcing them to curl over against the crisp night air. The only warmth he can feel now is where his body meets hers. Flesh against flesh, the physics of body heat.

He knows she's frozen too. He can hear her teeth softly chattering, feel the gooseflesh that has arisen on her skin and as much as she's trying to stifle it, she's trembling against him with each rise and fall of her chest. He knows her blood loss coupled with her lesser body mass would have brought her body temperature down degrees lower than his. Then it hits_._ That's why she hasn't moved. That's why she's sunk into him so willingly, she needs his warmth. She's soaking up the scarce amount of body heat his proximity seems to be providing her.

And that's all.

His chest falls in deflation but it's something at least. He's giving her something she can't give herself, even if it is just basics of survival. Maybe that's all he'll be able to give her tonight. Maybe that will be enough.

He tugs at the restrains on his wrists, wanting the freedom now more than ever to wrap his arms wholly around her. He wants to pull her further into his heat. He wants to rebuild her, recharge her, the way her presence used to do to him on a daily basis. _More irony,_ he thinks. He had thirteen years to hug the woman, embrace her and he chose to do so twice. Two _fucking_ times over a decade, both brought upon only by extreme moments of despair. He deserves this debilitating injustice now he thinks, to be so close, yet so far. But his only solace, the one thing he clings too when he continually places the burden solely upon his shoulders, is this one single question.

_How many times had she hugged him?_

He couldn't give her what she needed. He knows this. He accepts this. But neither could she. He practically had to draw any semblance of emotion or honesty from her like blood from a stone. She needs to be accountable for this too. She needs to take ownership for the limited times she let him in. Maybe if she hadn't kept herself at bay for so long. Maybe if she hadn't fled to Oregon. Maybe if she hadn't done a complete 360 when Kathy fell pregnant. Maybe if she had said what she had really come to say that night on his doorstep. Maybe if she had given him one, single, tangible sign that they had the slightest chance of working.

Then maybe then things could have been different.

He closes his eyes, forever haunted by the plethora of 'maybes' that taint his past, his present and his inevitable future. He can't do this right now. He can't fight her on this, it's futile, it's redundant, because no matter how many ways he chooses to spin this, or how many straws he frantically grasps at, she will always win this war.

_He_ walked. With no word. He didn't even give her a chance to accept or reject the possibilities between them. She fled to Oregon, but he fled her life.

_Check mate. _

He knows he can't give her the apology she so rightly deserves, at least not here and now. So he does the next best thing. He moves his bound wrists slowly up her stomach intent on giving her more warmth, more heat - more life to cling to.

As his knuckles brush up her abdomen she doesn't flinch, she just continues to breathe against his chest. He knows her body temperature will only continue to drop so he keeps moving his hands up until they bump the undersides of her breasts. _Damnnit. _He closes his eyes, he hadn't meant for that, but it's unavoidable if he wants to free them for her. He wants to ask her to move back a little, give him some room but she isn't responding to his words let alone his actions.

He moves them up and over her breasts, too hastily he realizes because they get trapped against lace, softness and all other forbidden parts of her. He feels her exhale into his neck in response. In shock perhaps. In pain. _Fuck._ More apologies he owes her. He feels her heartbeat against his fingers, now stronger than ever. He feels the life, the warmth, the emotion and he wants to cry, he wants to sob openly into the crown of her head because he can't do this.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, his voice thick with emotion - with regret, with all the things he wished he could say to her, and all the things he prays she already knows. It's not about his hands, or their proximity, it's her heart and the inexplicable connection that he feels beneath his palms.

She shifts, in an attempt to give him some room, but she's restricted by her wrists and it's fitting he thinks, when all they've ever known is distance, boundaries and limits, it's here and now that they've all become physical impossibilities.

But he feels the tension, the uncertainly from her part, and it slams achingly into his chest. _Christ_, just moments earlier she'd thought he was attacking her and now his hands are pressed up against intimate parts of her. He needs to move his hands off her chest - and now.

He manages to get them slightly upward but then it's the underside of her chin that now hinders any further movement. He's left with no option now but to house them in the small juncture between her chin and neck. He lets out an exhale when his fingers press against the nape. He feels her swallow, feels her pulse, her life - all tangible, all visceral realities against his hands. His forearms are still left pressed against her breasts but it's far less invasive and he hopes she understands it's the best he can do.

She's shaking against him now, trembling and he wants to blame the night air that's invaded the small space he's created between their bodies, not the fear. _Please Liv don't let it be fear that is causing you to shake like that. _But he feels it in the stiffness of her body, her jagged breaths. She's unsure, she's uncomfortable, and he is to blame. He's always to blame.

"Liv you gotta move," he chokes out, in defence, in panic, and he hadn't meant for it to come out like a demand. Just a plea, he can't have her thinking for a moment longer he's taking advantage of her. He feels his demand slam into her, and it's altered the rise and fall of her chest. It's much slower now, and if he didn't know better he thinks she might be holding her breath.

She shuffles slowly backwards, and it's clear it requires great effort, an intense exertion from her part otherwise she would have done so earlier. She moves far enough backward so her breasts completely detach from his body and his fingers are freed from the cocoon of her neck.

He feels nothing now, except her distance.

He has seconds to explain it wasn't distance he was trying to achieve. But instead he raises his free hands above his head and shuffles his hips forward, once - twice, until his knees knock hers. He hears her exhale heavily and he can sense the outburst sitting ripe on her tongue.

_Elliot, what the hell?_

But his arms come down before it leaves her mouth, and he slips her head between them, coming to land either side of her shoulders. He tugs her softly, pulling her into his body, ignoring the hint of resistance he feels because soon it will all make sense.

The moment her chest and bare stomach sinks against his, the bed of heat spreads across his body immediately. The warmth from their contact, no longer hindered by his fists is immediate. She exhales heavily into his neck in response before she lets her torso sink wholeheartedly into his. A noise leaves the back of her throat before he feels her completely succumb to the heat pooling from their union.

"Jesus," she whispers against his chest, before her body nestles further into his, eliminating any leftover crevices that exist between them.

He's read about this, people stripping down and clinging together in the wilderness. It's the fastest and most effective way to raise body temperature, but experiencing the natural heat for himself is unparalleled.

He slides his hands down her back, opening his chest up to her further, stopping when his bound palm comes in contact with the wound on her back. He touches it tentatively at first, his fingertips running back and forth before he feels her shiver against his touch. He breathes a sigh of relief when he finds the wound is no longer leaking. Thankful that all that remains is a dry canvass of carnage bordering only the slightest traces of dampness. He closes his eyes in gratitude, before his hand presses softly against it.

A quiet noise from the back of her throat escapes as the breath in her lungs leaves her body. More warmth, more heat pooling welcomely against his neck. He feels her knee move forward then, nudging his legs apart, desperate to generate more heat between them. He lifts a leg, granting her thigh access to slide between his. He clamps his eyes shut in the darkness when he feels her sliding further inward until her foot presses against the outer side of his calf muscle, locking them together in a pretzel like fashion. He breathes out the intensity. There is lace against his chest, his upper thigh now, there is warmth and life and heat from her breath, her body, her curves.

_Jesus._

It's everything he's always wanted, craved and dreamt about presented in the most horrific and inconceivable circumstances. He continues to clamp his eyes shut having no choice but to conjure a different place for them, a different time, a different life. A Sunday morning he thinks, waking up to find his body so intimately and emphatically interweaved with Olivia's. God it feels so real. So real he wants to freeze this moment. Bathe within it forever.

He ignores the bumps, the rocky road beneath them, the distant drone of the engine. Because none of it is real, not one part of it. It's just him and her, alone in this moment, not longer at war with each other but finally at peace.

He focuses on the feelings, the sensations, the connection, the affection that steadily arises from her proximity. He listens to her tapered breaths, far more prominent than their distant surroundings, and it's in that quiet moment that he imagines their life together. The one he could never actually comprehend or visualize until now, but suddenly seems so simplistic, so _uncomplicated_.

Rolling over each morning to capture those chocolate pools blinking back at him through lazy eyes. Her lips stretching into a sleepy smile before he presses his mouth against hers. Mumbling against her lips not to get up yet. _Just a few more minutes Liv._ It's so eerily vivid he thinks, like it's already a part of them. A part of their history. Just hitched on a different path that so unfairly ran off course.

He's petrified to open his eyes now, because he doesn't want to lose this. This hold, this feeling - so tangible, so visceral, so attainable. In thirteen years he's never felt this emotionally connected to her before.

He could tell her anything. All of it. All the reasons, all the pain, all the thoughts. All his faults, his hopes, his desires. He wants to tell her that he doesn't want to run from this anymore; from her. That the same world that ripped them apart has now inevitably thrown them back together, and it wasn't by chance. He knows now, he _needs_ her in his life, he never _stopped_ needing her since he left. And as hard as he tried, she never left his mind. Not for a God damned second.

He feels her shift slightly against his form and his eyes to snap open before he can stop himself. Then it hits. Reality. Darkness. Their situation. Bile lining the back of his throat. The intoxicating smell of sweat intermixed with blood and gas fumes. All things he'd fought so hard to block out. All now so overwhelmingly prominent. He is struck with a blindly dose of reality and his eyes start bud with tears in response. The prospect of their life together vanishing just as quickly as it started. He needs to forget it. Forget everything. He just wants her to live. That's all. He doesn't need her in his world. Or his bed. He just needs her to keep breathing_._ He needs to know she's out there somewhere when this is all over. That's _all_ he asks for.

But as the car bumps against jagged rocks, their bodies clinging together in the darkness, the frightening realization he'd suppressed hits him full force. Nineteen years in the unit might make him feel invincible but there's no guarantee they're going to survive this, and if he's brutally honest with himself, he isn't sure they will.

He's rusty. She's unpredictable. He's broken. She's wounded. They're no longer in sync. They're unarmed. Bound. Naked. Weakened. Vulnerable. They've been in compromising situations before, but this is different. He's never felt this weakened, this faithless, this doomed, and as hard as he tries he can't actually picture them walking away from this in one piece.

But maybe, just maybe, he thinks there's a chance he might be able to save her.

It's that moment that he feels her lips briefly nick his flesh as she burrows her face further into his neck, and he swallows the emotion building in his throat. He hears a small sound expel from her mouth like she's completely at peace, as if she isn't fighting the same internal battle and it's that thought alone that eases the tightness in his chest. His task becomes clear then. His single-minded focus moves solely to the rise and fall of her chest, the life that's slowly moving in and out of her lungs with each breath. The life he has to save tonight.

And as his hand continues to press softly against the wound on her back, he ensures the life within her stays just that.

Within.

**TBC**


End file.
